I'm not big on Westerns. I'm also not really a fan of Val Kilmer's work (I haven't liked him in much since Top Secret), but damn it if I didn't love this film.

Tombstone tells the story of Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell, sporting a nifty handlebar mustache), his family (including Sam Elliot, also with nifty handlebar mustache, and Bill Paxton, with a nifty...oh, you get the idea), and his friend Doc Holliday (Kilmer) who come to Tombstone seeking to get away from everything. Wyatt's no longer a lawman, having already cleaned up Dodge City. Wyatt and his kin are just looking to settle down and basically retire in peace and relative obscurity. But it's just not that easy. A band of outlaws (known as the Cowboys, not related to the band of outlaws playing football in Dallas) starts causing trouble. Earp and his boys come to a confrontation with the Cowboys at the fabled OK Corral. The shootout isn't glorified, if anything, it's fleeting. The rest of the film helps to deal with the consequences of ths shootout, when Wyatt and Doc seemingly stand alone against the Cowboys.

Tombstone's been faulted for some historical inaccuracies, some fudging of dates and things, but as entertainment, Tombstone is right cool. Strong performances from the entire cast (especially Kilmer and Michael Biehn, as Johnny Ringo) and nice production values make you forget about the films flaws. Only Dana Delany, as Josephine Marcus, seems miscast.

It's not merely good vs. evil in the case of the Earps and the Cowboys; the Earps were far from angels. But Tombstone does make the western accessible and less boring, actually making it quite stylish.